20/20 Investigations, Inc. The Wilderness Staircase. Chapter 1.

Hmm, it’s been kind of a dry time for cases lately. The only thing we have had was finding the neighbors pet hamster who escaped out the back door one day. That only took the cats 10 minutes. Oh well, I’m sure something will come along any time now. There’s the mail now! Meow, meow?=Any real mail today? “Yes, looks like we might have a case too,” I told them. Meow?=What kind of letter? “It’s a real one, typed on nice business paper, see?”, as I showed them. Meow,meow.=Good, say yes, we go pack. Off they went into the bedroom. “At least the intro page is typed on business paper anyway,” I said to myself. Poke, poke, two little heads show up in the bedroom door. Meow,meow?=What you mean, first page typed, what about other pages?

Ghosts? I said no ghosts! We go home now!

I must learn not to think out loud like that, their hearing is amazing. “Um, well, the other 2 pages are handwritten, but very nicely and still on business paper,” I explained. Meow.=That mean business with money problems. Meow, meow.=Yep, say no, we go unpack. We go through this every time. “But they paid half up front, plus travel expenses and we get to stay in a nice hotel,” I explained further. Poke, poke, those two little heads are back. Out they come. Meow.=Nice hotel mean lot of people, so it noisy place, probably don’t like cats. Meow, meow.=I agree. “But we will be the only people at the hotel, it’s, um, sort of a seasonal type hotel. And it’s in a wilderness setting so there should be lots of mice,” I said trying to make it sound as good as possible.

Meow.=Oh, wild mice, they’re the good kind. Meow, meow.=Hmm, okay, that sound better, say yes to case, we go pack. Well, here we are, on the plane, heading to our destination. Now is a good time to explain things more completely to the cats. “Okay you 2, here’s the whole deal,” I began to say. Meow, meow?=What you mean, whole deal? You keeping things from us? “No, no, that’s not it, but it always takes so long to accept a case, I wanted to speed things up a bit. And I knew you would want to take this case anyway,” I said. Meow.=Okay, out with the details. “Um, right, these people, David and Diane, bought some wilderness property for a resort they are now building. While looking around the property they discovered an old staircase, way at the far side of the property. It went up this high hill which was very hard to climb and at the top they discovered a large abandoned hotel.

Ghosts! Time to practice playing dead.

It was very old and had no way into the place except walking through the forest. They want us to explore it and find out why it was there. Meow!=Old hotel building should have lots of mice! This going to be fun case. Meow, meow!=Not fun case! Old abandoned hotel full of ghosts, not mice! Why you not say this? Turn plane around, we go back home now! “Um, we can’t turn the plane around Muffin,” I said. Meow,meow.=Then we catch another plane when we land and go home right away! No ghosts! Meow.=It okay Muffin, I here to protect you. Muffin looks at Mr. Cat and puts her head down a little. Meow, meow.=Okay, I trust you, we continue with case. But we better not see ghosts! “There are no ghosts Muffin,” I said, “and how come you didn’t say you trust me?” She gives me a hug. Meow,meow.=Of course I trust you too. But no more holding back details of case! “Right, no more,” I promised, “I don’t know anymore right now anyway.”

Yep, me practice too!

David and Diane picked us up at the airport and on the way back to their home we were given more details. “We bought the property very cheap,” said David, “then we found out why.” “Yes,” said Diane, “there is a legend about that old hotel, it was built about 300 years ago by a wealthy lady who wanted to be alone. She lived to be over 100 and is said to continue living there today. And she goes around scaring everyone away.” The cats ears were straight up listening to this news. “Now all our workers have left due to strange things happening,” said David, “and part of the legend says that terrible things happen to anyone who buys this land and goes into that old hotel. We went in to explore it but strange noises scared us out quickly and that’s when things began to happen.” Meow, meow!=That it, we turn back now and go home! Meow.=Maybe that good idea. “Sorry you 2, but we are staying, this sounds interesting,” I said to them quietly, “and stop sighing so much.”

To Be Continued.

Picture of Mr. Cat kindly supplied by his human, Nina.

Β©2020 Steve McLeod.

26 Comments on “20/20 Investigations, Inc. The Wilderness Staircase. Chapter 1.

  1. An excellent start to another mystery ! Glad the cats are there with you! β˜•οΈβ˜•οΈπŸ•΅οΈβ€β™‚οΈπŸ™€πŸ™€πŸŽ„

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Well, this already seems spooky and I don’t blame the cats for wanting to go home. But, a good P.I. must persevere. Stay safe! πŸ˜¬πŸ‘»πŸ˜ΌπŸ˜ΌπŸ‘€β˜•οΈβ˜•οΈ

    Liked by 1 person

    • I’m sure there is a logical explanation for all this. I hope. Yep, they want to leave but I know they will want to find out what’s going on too.πŸ˜³πŸ™€πŸ™€πŸ•΅οΈβ€β™‚οΈ

      Liked by 1 person

  3. β€œstop sighing so much”. Teeheeheee. Just tell them there will be plenty of spiders…
    Muffin’s face is priceless! πŸ˜ŠπŸ–πŸ˜»

    Liked by 1 person

    • Glad to hear that D! There will be some things to discover at this place, will they be good or bad?πŸ€”πŸ˜¬πŸ™€πŸ™€πŸ•΅οΈβ€β™‚οΈ
      Meow,meow!=Thank you!😸😹

      Liked by 1 person

  4. Wow Steve, an amazing start of the story. Cats 😸😸 it is fun 🀣 another letter, another old building 😜 another exciting adventure began 😻😍 strange noises could never fear our Brave PI’s.. let’s see what they got for us😎

    Liked by 1 person

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: